| rev:text
| - This office doesn't even deserve a one star. My husband was referred there last December for a consult on his cataracts. They finally scheduled an appointment in January, did his exam and then said they would call him to set up the surgery. We never heard from them. He had some other medical issues to take care of so by the time we got back to them it was 6 months later. He was told that they needed to get another referral from TriWest. He called a few times to get an appointment scheduled and it was finally scheduled in August. He went back in for another full exam and was told to come back on September 1st to be scheduled for surgery. I obtained a baby sitter and went back with him. Another exam was done and then Kathy told him he had to purchase a kit for $65 or else he was going to have to purchase 3 different drops for his eyes. I told her that all his meds came from the VA and he didn't use an outside pharmacy. My husband agreed to purchase the kit for $65 and the surgery was scheduled for September 12th. Before we left, they gave him a script for an EKG because the outpatient surgery center needed that to be done before he could have surgery. I told them he would have to call the VA to get it scheduled.
When we came home, he called the VA and left a message with the call center for Dr. Patel to tell her he needed an EKG as soon as possible as he had surgery scheduled on the 12th of September. He called again twice on Tuesday to tell them to please get the message to Dr. Patel as surgery was scheduled for the 12th. On Thursday, the 7th of September, Kathy called and asked if we had the EKG done yet and I told her we were still waiting to hear from Dr. Patel. That each time we left a message, we were told it would take up to 72 hours before we heard back from them.
I then called the VA again and left another message for Valerie who is Dr. Patel's nurse at the VA. Valerie called me back and asked what was going on. I told her the Newman Eye Center had done another exam on Ed and they wanted an EKG done as his surgery was scheduled for September 12th. She pulled up his records and said the only record of him seeing Dr. Newman on his file was in January. Valerie had no record of this new appointment in the VA system. She also told me that Newman's office didn't follow the proper procedure and should not have given him a script for an EKG as it had to go through the VA and then Dr. Patel would have called for a cardiac consult. Valerie told me that because they didn't follow the correct procedure, we would have had to pay for the surgery. She told me that the VA now had an ophthalmologist at the hospital and that she was going to refer him to him. She gave me the number to call for an appointment. She advised us to cancel the surgery as the VA wasn't going to order the EKG as it wasn't requested in the correct way and with his history, a cardiologist would need to review it.
My husband then called Dr. Newman's office and told Debbie, the office manager, that the VA was cancelling the surgery as they didn't follow the correct procedure. Debbie preceded to tell him that he would be charged $200 for cancelling at which time he gave me the phone and I told her we would not be paying a $200 fee as the VA has told us to cancel. She then insisted that she needed to hear that from the VA. My husband also told her I would be bringing back the case they sold us for $65 on Tuesday the 12th of September.
Cheryl, from TriWest called me Friday afternoon about this matter, and I explained to her what happened. She told me that he should not have been charged for a case and that they could not charge us for the cancellation of the surgery. Because it was late, she was going to call Debbie on Monday, the 11th, and explain this to her.
Today, I went up to Newman's office to return the case and Debbie again is asking me what happened. Again I explained to her that they didn't follow the correct procedures and that the VA was cancelling the surgery. She wanted to know if I knew the number as she claims she has been talking to the VA and they don't have an ophthalmologist on staff. I told her I didn't have the number and that she would call but would be put through to the call center and would have to leave a message for Valerie, Dr. Patel's nurse. She then got on the phone and was talking to someone and asked me to talk to that person. I took the phone and Debbie had called TriWest not the VA. TriWest doesn't know if the VA has a new ophthalmologist on staff so I told the lady on the phone, Debbie had called the wrong person and hung up. Debbie then claimed she couldn't refund his money as Dr. Newman wasn't there to issue us a check. Bull.
I just put a complaint into TriWest, and Paulina is going to notify her supervisor not to send any referrals to Newman Eye Center
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)